


I Recall

by DreamerInSilico



Series: Splinters [1]
Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/F, Pre-Canon, Reunions, because gods it's always those with me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-23 08:30:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13783677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamerInSilico/pseuds/DreamerInSilico
Summary: An accounting of the Watcher's (or rather, Nephele ix Iera's) relationship with her once-lover, Iovara, and how it all went to shit (but how it might be redeemed).





	I Recall

**Author's Note:**

> I've started (and not updated for over a year, but DAMMIT I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT IT) a longfic in the PoE-verse and I am terribly, terribly invested in my Watcher's past romantic history with Iovara. This fic examines that specific set of lives (though they've encountered each other in several more, in my 'verse). A look at how things could have played out if you chose the "I loved her" option when defining your past relation to Iovara in-game.
> 
> Written for the 2018 PoE minibang, and illustrated by someone so perfect to work with me on this I'm frankly still in awe, @stylishanachronism (on tumblr).

 

 

“I… have to leave.”  

The words were soft, light things in Iovara’s voice, but they fell into Nephele’s ears like lead.  Part of her wanted to try to believe that they were merely a precursor to explaining that she had a mission to carry out, from which she would then return, but Iovara’s intent sang out from her mind, and even had Nephele not been able to sense such things, she would have known it.  Three nights ago, they had sat, as they did now, together on the temple dormitory’s roof, and Iovara had shared a discovery that threatened to undermine what felt like their entire world.  

The gods were not ancient, vast intelligences that had created the kith, but instead had been _created by_ kith themselves, designed and birthed into being with the express purpose of guiding and controlling the lives of mortals.  

If it was true… they were missionaries.  Near-priests.  They had both spent their adult lives (and in Nephele’s case, rather longer than that) spreading the teachings and doctrines of the gods, and at times, enforcing them.  Had they been duped, and used to spread an agenda as mortal and fallible as any warlord-monarch’s?  

Iovara was watching her in the dim moonlight, eyes full of worry and pain.  

“Because you believe the implications of what you found,” Nephele murmured, throat feeling tight.  Deep in the Woedican archives, there had been fragmentary references and descriptions of a great animantic working, powered by hundreds of sacrifices.  They had never spelled out such an agenda in so many words, but taken together… Nephele certainly agreed that it looked bad.  

Iovara nodded, the motion gentle, but decisive.  Resolve seemed to pulse in the air around her like a heartbeat.  “I do.  And knowing that… I can’t keep doing this.  I took the robes to speak the _truth_ to people.”  

A sharp frisson of fear jolted through Nephele’s pain at this, because it made her realize…

“You’re not just going to leave, are you?  You’re going to start telling people…”  

“...the truth.  Yes,” Iovara finished softly when Nephele’s words trailed off.  “The faith… we’ve spoken out about tyrants and excess, but we have been just another sort of tyrant, waging war with ideas instead of bronze, controlling people’s lives just as surely.”  

But the faith was quite willing to use bronze, as well, as they both knew.  

“You’ll be killed,” Nephele whispered, anguished.  Woedican justice was very particular about _social order_ and what must be done about those who disrupted it.  

Iovara’s lips tightened in a wry twist, and she reached across the tiny space between them to take Nephele’s hand, twining their fingers together.  “Perhaps, eventually.  But I’ve no intention of making that an easy thing to do.”  

“Just in painting a target on your chest.”  The words were laced with a bitterness that Nephele could not quite contain.  

Cool, soft fingers squeezed her own.   “Just in acting as I must.”

 _Acting as I must_.

What Iovara had said she believed was, in the deepest, most complete terms, heresy.  Heresy that Nephele was obligated, as a servant of the gods in general and Woedica in particular, to report.  The fear grew strong enough to be nauseating.  

“You don’t believe my conclusions are true,” Iovara ventured after a few moments of silence.  

“I…” Nephele swallowed.  Coming from almost anyone else, she would have found some fault with the scholarship, or the agenda of the person making such a radical assertion.  But Iovara had been thorough in assembling the evidence, and she, more than anyone else Nephele had ever known, _believed in_ and _embodied_ justice.  “I don’t know what I believe,” she husked at last.  

She didn’t _want_ to believe she’d been told lies by the closest thing she’d had to a father she’d had since childhood, and then gone on to enthusiastically spread those lies.  But she also didn’t want to believe that Iovara, whom she loved like she loved air and sunlight and music, was _wrong_ about something so crucial, and so dangerous.  

“I won’t… you know I won’t report you,” Nephele added, a trickle of relief threading through her as she said the words and knew that they were true.  

“But you won’t go with me.”  And finally Iovara’s voice did sound as heavy as the words.  

Nephele couldn’t bring herself to voice an answer, instead turning to bury her head into the crook of Iovara’s shoulder, breathing in her scent (always subtly, faintly floral, though she never wore perfume) and trying not to weep.  Iovara didn’t speak again, but she did hold her, a warm counterpoint to the cool, night air, grounded against the vastness of the sky.

 

* * *

 

“We have but one option.  Iovara’s following must see her exposed for what she is.  She must confess her heresy before my court.”  Thaos’s voice was terrible and resonant as he eyed her closely.  Nephele guarded her mind well, as she had been taught.  ( _As he had taught her._ )  “You were close, once, were you not?”  

Nephele swallowed and nodded.  “We were.”  

“But you remained faithful when she turned apostate, and have served the Faith well since. He nodded, approval clear even in the granite of his expression.  “I would not ask this if I thought there any other way.  I need you to go to her, in her chosen bastion of Creitum.”  

And there it was.

The first few weeks after Iovara had slipped away, Nephele had been nauseated both with hope for word of her, and hope that she would not receive any - for if that word came, it would most likely come with news of her punishment by her erstwhile brethren.  But there had been nothing, and she had eventually calmed, a little.  Life had moved on - dimmer and quieter for the loss of Iovara in it, but onward, regardless.  

Then, months later, word _had_ come, and well, of _course_ people were listening to Iovara’s message.  She had been among the best of the missionaries; it was only natural that she swiftly rise to prominence against them.  

Nephele had been so proud of her, and so terrified.  She had wanted to flee, and find her, but did not out of fear.

And then there had been more, and more, and more word.  A storm was rising, prepared to clash against the orderly fields and walls and temples of the Faith, and Iovara was the heart of it.  Then, Nephele had wanted to go to her again, but had still not, and told herself it was because she could bring more of value when she did go, if she waited longer.

Now, Thaos was sending her.  

She was to be the agent of the heretics’ destruction, a dart cast in the night to the heart of their enemies.  Instead, she would be a bird flying back to her nest, at last.  ( _Would her mate still want her there?_ )

“I understand, Eminence,” she replied solemnly, with a respectful bow.  Words low and firm, the tremulous song in her heart kept carefully shielded.  “I’ll prepare at once.”

 

* * *

 

The stone walls of Creitum were soaked dark from a brief spring thundershower when Nephele arrived, rising proud and stately against a cloudy sky that still smelled like lightning, and she could hear the low chortling of the city’s ubiquitous wooden wind chimes as they danced in the leftover storm breeze.  She had spent the journey so preoccupied with the prospect of seeing Iovara again that she hadn’t spared a thought for how a return to the city itself would affect her - the lump in her throat was so strong and so sudden that she barely managed to choke out the answers to the routine questions a guard at the gates asked her before allowing her to pass.  

The _music_.

If someone had ever thought to ask her whether she missed the wind chimes of Creitum, she would have certainly said yes, but that abstract awareness was nothing like the reality of encountering them again.  They changed the whole texture of the world, as if something in her soul she hadn’t realized was hurting had finally found relief.  

A stop in the cool shadows of a tea shop gave her both some needed time to recompose herself, and information: it was not difficult to find someone who could tell her where the heretics gathered.  Much as Thaos had said, Iovara had made quite the name for herself since returning to the city of her birth - which realization filled Nephele with a newly-roiling mix of pride and shame and anxiety.  

Would Iovara care that she had come for her own sake, or simply see her as another new follower?  The second would perhaps be easier, but it was utterly impossible for Nephele not to hope for the first.  

And her reasons for that were not what they should be, were they?

_Selfish, ungrateful, unfaithful…_

With a deep breath, she stood up from her bench, waved a farewell to the tea shop proprietor, and forced herself to make her way deeper into the city.  

She found the small amphitheatre which she’d heard referred to as the Crescent of Questions just as the city’s shadows had lengthened enough to near-fully merge under the setting sun.  Rather than a speaker addressing a crowd, she found several small knots of people - diverse of kith and of apparent social station - in what seemed mostly-friendly conversation.  

Closer inspection seemed to indicate that most of the groups had one member acting as a leader of some sort, and after a few minutes of hovering, she managed to catch one - a wiry, steely-eyed human woman - in a lull.  

“Please, I’m looking for Iovara ix Ensios.  Is she here?” Nephele asked, hoping she seemed more friendly than nervous.  

The woman looked her over slowly, suspicion clear on her weathered face and radiating out from her strongly enough that Nephele could feel it without reaching out.  “No one who’s spent time with our folk calls her that; it’s just Iovara.  You’d best not be here to cause trouble, hmm?”  

_And aren’t you?_

No, but she was supposed to be.

Nephele swallowed the lump that had re-arisen, and made herself smile.  “No.  She’s… an old friend.”  

“Hmn.”  The woman grunted, but nodded toward a small pavillion beyond the last row of benches.  “I think she’s still in there.”  

Nephele’s heartbeat rose to what she felt should have been audible levels as she nodded.  “My thanks, mistress.”  And she made her way to the tent, wind chimes singing in her mind.  

 

* * *

 

“Ibrydos is getting nasty,” a young elven man was saying.  “Even though the Inquisition doesn’t truly have a foothold - yet - too many priests with too much power.  Four of ours came in this morning to resettle here because they were getting locked out of their trade.”  

“I have hopes that…”

The rest of the words in the feminine reply didn’t register in Nephele’s mind as language, for the familiarity of the voice was all that she could care about in the moment.  She paused in the pavillion doorway, irrationally almost wanting to flee now that she was finally here.  

Iovara looked up from the missive she had been scanning, and gasped.  

Three years had polished her like a gemcutter’s wheel - it was as if every facet of her bearing had become exactly what it had somehow always been meant to be, sharp and shining and brilliant.  Clad in new-leaf green and silver rather than the missionary’s robes or the sober traveling leathers she’d always worn _before_ , she could almost have been an avatar of springtime itself, and her long, unbound hair leant an almost shocking sense of intimacy to her appearance that magnified her already-impressive innate charisma into something truly dazzling.  

Clarity and purpose and empathy seemed to vibrate through the space around her… and something else.

Joy.

Nephele nearly wept.  

Instead, she managed a small, wry smile and a lift of a hand.  

“ _Nephele_ ,” Iovara breathed.  There was a moment that was all confusion - wind chimes singing all out of sync and yet more beautiful than they had ever been, before - and then Iovara had crossed the space between them and taken her hands tightly, raising them and squeezing them near her chest.  “You came.”

There was a pause in which Nephele herself could not bring herself to make noise, and then the young man spoke up: “She’s the one you knew in the missionaries, then.”  His tone made it clear that he did not approve.  

“She is,” Iovara agreed, sea-green eyes finding Nephele’s, with a world of hope carried in them.  

“Could be a spy.”

Nephele finally managed to make her mouth work.  “I… was sent, by him.”  

“...A stupid spy, good, that’s helpful.”  She was distantly aware of the sound of a blade being drawn, of violent intent pulsing from the man’s direction.  It failed to trouble her.  

Iovara shook her head, eyes flicking briefly to her companion.  “Peace, Torion.  She would not say such a thing if she came meaning us harm.”  Her gaze refocused on Nephele.  “I have hoped she might join us since before there was truly an ‘us,’ and I know the way has not been easy for her.”  

The compassion and lack of condemnation in that statement nearly stole Nephele’s breath, but she rallied, squeezing Iovara’s hands back, at last, and holding her eyes.  “It shouldn’t be, should it?  It wasn’t, but I…”  Whatever eloquent words of explanation she might have pieced together fled, and instead she was left only with the raw truth.  “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered.

“As I have missed you, my love,” came the soft, earnest reply, as Iovara brought Nephele’s hands to her lips.  

“I thought to - wanted to - wanted to come to you, for a long time, but…”  It seemed cowardly - _was_ cowardly - and she faltered midway through.  

“...But now you’ve been gifted a chance to do so without pursuit or suspicion, and may forestall others being sent,” Iovara finished for her, the reasoning sounding so much more firm coming from her lips.  

There was so much else to say, but it all pressed forward in Nephele’s mind all at once, in a great felted mass from which it seemed impossible to draw a single strand, and a pulse of impatience from the man named Torion (which Iovara must have heard in the rustling of papers and sigh of breath) prevented her from needing to try.  

With a final squeeze of her fingers, Iovara released them, then briskly plucked a yellow flower from where it had been half-floating in a ceramic bowl.  Returning to Nephele, she deftly tucked the blossom behind her ear, causing Nephele to smile with a sudden, deep and affectionate amusement.  

Iovara had always loved flowers, but they were frowned upon by the Woedican clergy as impermanent, frivolous, and undignified.  

“It’s pretty.”  

Iovara grinned, eyes sparkling.  “It is!  And useful.  These have become something of a symbol of our fellowship.  The innkeeper on the corner two squares south is one of us, and will at the least get you a meal, if you go there.  I would ask Torion to let me delay our conference, but I fear that if I allow myself to start showing you about just now, I wouldn’t be able to pull away.”  She gave her companion a respectful nod, to which he inclined his head, apparently mollified, if still not exactly pleased about Nephele’s arrival and quick acceptance.  

She couldn’t blame the fellow for that.  

“Very well.  Shall I wait for you there?”  Warmth, so much warmth.  Even the flower was like spring sunlight in the corner of her eye.  

“Yes,” Iovara agreed with a smile.    


* * *

  


“I hadn’t realized how much I missed the chimes,” Nephele sighed, much later, her apprehension almost entirely drained into weary, relieved contentment.  The near-constant, light breeze had them singing pleasantly amidst the early-evening bustle of the city.  

Iovara looked up from the section of embroidery she was steadily, methodically working on as they talked, and smiled, faintly wistful.  “Neither had I.  And then as soon as I heard them for the first time again, I thought of you.”  

Welcome as that sentiment was, it brought another wave of almost-guilt, that she had let Iovara go away on her own, and failed to follow for so long.  

“That is new,” she said, nodding to the embroidery as she brushed the feeling away in favor of curiosity.  

Iovara’s ears twitched along with her lips, mingled amusement and delight.  “It is!  Or, well, sort of.  I did learn when I was young, though when I first started again, there was quite the patina to polish off.  One of the first friends I made when I returned here is a weaver, like my mother.  I do embellishments for him to help earn my keep.”  

Nephele found herself blinking in surprise, which Iovara seemed to take in with deepening amusement, as if anticipating what she would say.  She said it anyway.  “But you’re their leader.”  

“But I am not a priest, not anymore,” she replied firmly.  “Nor would I aspire to be.  Many of our fellowship share freely with one other, and particularly with those who have just arrived, or cannot provide for themselves, but I can, and so I will.  I have no wish to set myself up as merely a replacement for… the regime.”  

Nephele chewed on this revelation for a long moment in silence, eyes sweeping over Iovara’s face as it returned to the intricate design she was patiently stitching.  Put that way, of course it made sense, but it also highlighted just how radical a departure from the normal way of things Iovara and her followers had truly taken.  

What would the world look like with no priesthood?  If it could possibly look like what she had seen of the fellowship in Creitum….

But what of the gods, if Iovara was wrong?  And what of the gods if she _wasn’t_ wrong?  They were still indubitably powerful beings.  

“You didn’t want to come because you had changed your mind about my conclusions,” Iovara observed after a moment, though there was no judgment in her tone.  

“Can a position be truly changed when it was never rightly made up in the first place?” Nephele asked wryly, pensively.  “As I did even at the first, I think your logic is sound.  The ethics are… murkier, for me, than for you.  As I think they always have been.”  She sighed softly, then added more wryly still: “Though Creitum has clearly not descended into the pit of depravity that He would have his followers believe.”  

That got a quiet chuckle from Iovara.  “Careful, my love; you just said that despite knowing we use _flowers_ for _ornamentation_.  Tragically, we seem to already be getting to you.”  

“Hnn.”  Nephele laughed in turn.  “Tragically, indeed.  No, my concern is honestly… more pragmatic than anything, I think.”  

“Oh?” came the calm invitation to elaborate.  

She had to deliberate over her words for a few moments, in which she refilled each of their wine goblets from the nearby carafe.  “That folk created the gods, I find easy - at times distressingly so - to believe.  But even if I believe that, you and I have both seen enough of their power to know that, falsely-gained or no, they do have it.”  She left the words hanging, in implicit question.  

“They do have some,” Iovara allowed.  “But consider two things, in that vein: One, it is necessarily, explicitly limited.  They each have their domains of interest and their agendas, but those domains are finite.  Two, even the extent of that power _within_ those domains… we have previously been asked to take much on faith of the word of the likes of Thaos.  It is terribly convenient for him if we believe he is the prophet of the Queen of all the gods and that the combined powers of her court are vast and unknowable, is it not?”  

Nephele had to admit that it was.  

“So consider this, then.  Let us pretend, for a moment, that the gods’ power _is_ truly as vast as he would have us believe.  Why, then, is it in their best _collective_ interests - despite their diversity - to entrust so much responsibility for mortals’ belief in it to him?  Why is he allowed to be the single, flawed lens by which the rest of us must gain all our understanding and conviction?  Why do they leave so much to our _faith_ that what he and his followers are telling us is true, when even most of those followers - the devout and loyal, like you! - must rely on him?”  

“...I can’t say,” she murmured after some hesitation.

“Neither can I, which leaves me to conclude that this is not the way of things.  That they must trust in the mystique and mortal power of a man with great personal strength and an enormous, fervent following.  I know firsthand the value of charisma!”  

For a second, Iovara looked up, and Nephele’s breath caught.  Iovara _burned_ .  All that glittering, gemstone fire, the full force of her personal magnetism unleashed, and it somehow demanded that Nephele heed it, even - she knew! - without benefit of the powers of mind-manipulation that Nephele herself possessed.  In that moment, Nephele realized beyond the shadow of a doubt, that if Iovara had wished to become like Thaos, if she had sought to command a desperately loyal force of missionaries, if she had reached toward the concept of _priesthood_ or _prophet_ rather than merely _questioner, friend, leader_ , she could have claimed that same legacy for herself, easily.  

Yet, she had chosen not to.  

And then the moment was over, and Iovara’s eyes, dimmed to stormsea embers, fell back to her needlework.  “They must trust in him,” she continued more quietly, though still fiercely, “because they cannot confidently do without.  They need him to unify mortals and protect their secrets.  With those secrets revealed and that unity fractured… what, then, could _we_ do?  What could we be without being shackled to them?  This is what I want us to have, Nephele.”  

What could they do, indeed?  

Asked in Iovara’s voice, the question seemed to imply all kinds of possibility.  Freedom, power, self-determination.

Asked in another voice, though, it lost all hope: _what can_ we _do?_  

But this was what Iovara wanted them to have, and right then and there, it was hard to believe that they couldn’t have it.  That this wasn’t something worth striving for.  

Nephele spoke her greatest blasphemy yet, finally, in response.  “I want us to have that, too.”  Then, truth: “Truly, I came for you.  But I also want you to be right.”  

“Then that is all I could possibly ask of you.”  Iovara’s voice was soft and husky, and she set aside her embroidery then, delicately, every motion a part of the harmonic perfection of the moment.  Those long, dexterous fingers reached out and framed Nephele’s face in soft pinpoints of warmth, and then, Iovara’s lips were on hers, finally, oh, finally.  

The kiss was, at least in that moment, worth every fearful heartbeat, every moment of anxiety Nephele had endured in realizing she should come here, and carrying out the order when it was given, but not in the _spirit_ that it was given.  

Something that had been broken began to slowly, tentatively heal.  

 

* * *

 

Torion had never truly trusted her.

Torion had never truly trusted her, and so it was with some small panic but no great surprise that she endured being pinned against an alley wall, with his dagger to her throat.  

“I - “

She was, a moment later, very grateful that she had not had time to cry out what she had meant to say - _I am loyal to the fellowship_.

“Quiet, child.  I desperately need to speak with you, and time is short.”  

The voice wasn’t Torion’s.  

Her eyes went wide, but she stopped struggling, went limp and pliant against the wall, terror mixing with love mixing back again with terror.  She knew, instinctively, whose soul spoke out from Torion’s lips.  (Another deific miracle, proving their power, some might say.)  Her rescuer, her mentor, her _tormentor, her question_.  

The dagger withdrew, in a restrained, precise manner that was utterly alien to the hotblooded young elf.  

“I hear you, Eminence,” Nephele forced herself to say, tone deferential and eyes downcast.  But gloved fingers tilted her chin up to face him.  

“You do, don’t you, child,” he hummed.  “This is dangerous.  I should not be here, but I must communicate with you or all is lost.  Our other spies have not been able to penetrate.”  

Largely because she had identified them before they could reach the heart of the fellowship.  

“Her coalition is careful, Eminence.  They accepted me for the love she once bore me, only.”  The words were sawdust on her tongue, for altogether too many reasons.  

“And bears no longer?” he prodded.

Stars, but she wished he hadn’t asked that.  

“It is difficult for me to say how she _feels_ , Eminence,” she lied.  “She has… learned.  Someone here has taught her to close off her mind.”  They had, yet Iovara had never done so with her.  “But I believe she does trust me.  I have been able to… turn my skill at debate to seeing her point of view in just a skeptical enough light.”  

He sighed, as if in relief, though she could pick up as few emotional emanations from him as ever.  

“You are truly the key, then, that will bridge this gap between us.”  

“ _What_?” Nephele asked, overwhelmed.  

“The world is in a crisis, child.  Social order has been upset because Iovara and her ilk have been asking forbidden questions, but I know now that the key to preventing more bloodshed is to meet those questions head-on.  I cannot do so at this juncture without an intermediary.  You will be that intermediary.”  

“ _What?_ ” she asked, again.  

He hissed out his frustration, which made her shrink back against the wall instinctively.  

“She has asked questions that others would ask, too.  Our order has finally realized how directly… and equitably... we must meet them.  Convince her, please.  I fear the stability of the entire known world if our order clashes directly with her followers.  We will face these questions together and arrive at a reasonable answer.”  

It was everything she had hoped from her almost-father (little as he seemed to remember that title, past her teenage years).  It was more than that.  It was a chance at reconciliation between her love and her filial duty.  It was a chance at peace for the world.  

“What must I do?” she whispered.  

“Have her meet with us at Ossionus.  It is relatively neutral ground, where we would debate these questions and work out a future.  Can you do this for me, for the memory of our past?  Can you do this for her?” he insisted.

“Yes,” she answered clearly, near-immediately.  And he nodded and released her, walking away before Torion’s bearing shifted abruptly back to his own, and he continued down the street.  

_Can you do this for the memory of our past?_

That question haunted her, though, as she moved through her evening.  Why did he feel as though he had to appeal to her past loyalty, with such a present-focused plan and question?  

 

* * *

  


Convincing Iovara to ride for Ossionus was so easy, it almost felt wrong.  Creitum was militarily threatened by multiple cities, not all of which had a strong missionary presence, yes.  Nephele was her long-beloved, yes.  The peace overture was terribly important, especially in light of recent tensions, yes.  

So why was Nephele so apprehensive of being heeded?

But Iovara had taken the suggestion and verbal sketch of the source (minus Torion being directly possessed by Thaos, for some reason.  That felt like… too much) with thoughtful equanimity, and then she had chosen to act.  They would, indeed, seek some peace with their former order.  

The gates of Ossionus slammed shut behind them, and Nephele’s anxiety flared to a bonfire roar.  Where was their --?  Why had the gates closed so soon?  

And then she knew why, as their front contingent was surrounded by mounted initiates who, though hooded and masked, were fully-armed.  

 _This is my fault.  MY FAULT,_ her conscience shrieked as she comprehended what was happening, the degree to which she’d bought into the comforting lie of her former life and her almost-father.  

“This isn’t - !”  Iovara’s voice was pure and clear beside her, and Nephele could not bear it, instead looking bleakly out on the approaching Inquisitors.  

“This is my fault,” she breathed, eyes darting frantically about and bile rising in her throat.  

“ _N_ _ephele!_ ”  The command drew her attention as none from any other voice, save perhaps the master she apparently could not ever completely abandon, could have.  She wrenched her eyes, anguished, to Iovara’s face.  

“Nephele,” she hissed, low and rough and almost savage as she pulled Nephele’s face in close near hers, the knowledge of what was about to happen plain on her face.  

“Iovara, this is all my --- “

“ _Listen_ to me!  You must remember!  You were a spy.  You can spin that however is necessary to _live!_ ”  

The words hit her like a horse’s hoof to the chest.  

They were there because of her, and Iovara wanted her to …?

“Promise me!” Iovara hissed, even more urgently.  

“...what would you have?” she returned bleakly, the whole situation still failing to overcome the surreal feeling.  

“ _REMEMBER!_ Remember what and why!  Remember me when I am betrayed!”  

_But you are already betrayed…_

“Nephele?  Please…”  There was real fear in her eyes, so close to Nephele’s own, and she could not bear to do anything but agree, just before the masked ones closed the distance and snapped Iovara up.  

“I will remember,” she swore, tears welling up in her eyes and blinding her, as the day’s yellow flower wilted in her hair, and Thaos’s wrath, like a wave, swept Iovara up and dragged her down into Ondra’s forgotten depths.  

 

* * *

 

 _I will remember._  

The words reverberate through Acantha as she presses forward through Breith Eaman, and now, oh, now, she does remember.  She remembers all of it.  

She remembers her own naivete and indecision as she approached the schism of her adoptive father and her love, her light, and the light of reason, itself.  She remembers how poorly she walked that knife-edge, how earnestly she wanted to do right, but how easily she was manipulated into betraying the person she had loved over a period of not years, but lifetimes.  

She remembers the forgiveness in Iovara’s eyes as the knife finally fell, and it is unbearable.  

Her companions are silent - or close enough to it; she never registers their chatter, anyway - as they progress through the near-forgotten ruin of a soul-prison.  They sense the pain and the shadowy radiance of this place.  

And finally, _finally_ … there is a pair of sea-green eyes, above the tatters of green traveling robes.  And those eyes hold a love that cuts more keenly than any blade Acantha has ever failed to dodge.  

“And so you return to me, my love.”  

Acantha falls to her knees.  

“ _I remember_ ,” she whispers, and ghostly hands reach down to take hers.

**Author's Note:**

> I spent altogether too much time angsting about canon divergence re: how exactly the betrayal came about. Just playing through the game, I could kind of accept the idea of a distant past-self actually intentionally betraying Iovara, but it doesn't make for a very good love story, does it? So instead, I came up with a pile of headcanons which barely got hinted at in this fic about what Nephele's relationship was like with Thaos, and why he was able to manipulate her, etc etc. Nephele's kind of a derp, but I love her anyway.
> 
> Go go gadget overthinking!
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading! If you're interested in more of this story, I swear Relentless Splinters I Recall isn't actually a dead fic. I was working on it just a few weeks ago, but the next 1-2 chapters seem to want to have their content cut up and rearranged a bit, so I've got maybe one more work session before posting happens again.


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